A Life More Complete(78)

I’m deep breathing in the Rite Aid parking lot trying to figure out what would make my reproductive organs decide that now would be the perfect time to hate me, but nothing pertinent comes to mind. Resigned I leave the car.

I scan the signs hanging from the ceiling as I try to locate the aisle I’m looking for, but the signs don’t say anything like “Aisle for possibly knocked up single twenty-eight year old”. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, a sales person asks if I need help finding anything.

“Pregnancy tests?” I ask using only those two words.

“Aisle two with baby items,” she says smiling as if she knows my secret and is somehow thrilled for me. I guess the look of disbelief on my face isn’t as apparent as I think. My palms begin to sweat and I can feel the perspiration building under my arms as I head down the aisle. Baby items, really? It’s like the whole aisle is saying, “Welcome to your future”. Diapers, formula, pacifiers, diaper rash cream, and wipes, it’s all here neatly wedged and perfectly faced next to the condoms and pregnancy tests. It’s all overwhelmingly ironic.

I never thought there would be at least ten different types of tests to choose from. I grab a nice assortment, since I have it firmly rooted in my head that a false positive is entirely possible and I need more than one test to confirm what I know to already be untrue. There is no way I’m pregnant, but just to be on the safe side I choose three different tests.

I toss the three tests onto the counter in front of a teenage boy with acne-riddled skin and the smell of patchouli radiating from his clothes. He rings them up without a word and I tell him I don’t need a bag. He hands me the three tests and says, “Good luck, lady.” He has no idea how much I need that right now.

I drop the tests on the seat of my car and stare at them with an intense longing to go back in time and figure out exactly how I ended up in this situation. Well, I know how I ended up in this situation; I wasn’t fifteen anymore.

Arriving home, I put the tests on the kitchen table and choose the least offensive looking one. They’re all offensive at this point, but I make my choice based on the fact that the box is unassuming and plain. I pull the Rite Aid brand test from the box, unfold the directions that are now the size of a map of United States and begin to read. Step one: Pee on stick. Step two: Wait three minutes. Step three: Read results. That’s the condensed version. So I open the other two packages and find very little modifications to the rocket science process. I take the foil wrapped stick into the bathroom and commence peeing on the little absorbent tab.

I set the test on the toilet tank and close my eyes. When I open them back up my eyes focus on the pee stream moving slowly down the stick and through the little plastic window. First a light blue line appears and then, as I feel my heartbeat quicken and my stomach churn, a second blue line much darker than the first. Three minutes, my ass! That was more like three seconds. A series of irrational, but totally rational thoughts fly through my head. Maybe it’s too soon to read the results. I should wait the recommended three minutes and that blue line will disappear. I retreat to the kitchen and chug a full glass of water.

I decide not to bother reading the original test until I’ve peed on the last two, this way I’ll have a full reading and the false positive in the bathroom, that is currently beating like the “Tell Tale Heart”, will look like a funny joke.

Grabbing the last two tests, I head to my guest bathroom. I figure a change of scenery will allow my body to stop hating on me and produce the results I’m seeking. I double fist the two tests and pee on them simultaneously placing them on the toilet tank. My eyes sink into them as the urine soaks the tab and bleeds down the stick, through the plastic window and stops to reveal the results, again in record time. Both tests...positive. At least I think the EPT test is positive, the results are rather complicated.

I grab all three tests, place them in a Ziplock bag and shove them into the linen closet under the perfectly folded sheets for my guest bed, because I know there will come a time when I’ll want them again. I toss all the leftover trash into the garbage, except the crumpled up directions for the EPT test. I scan it once again for confirmation to what has already been proven by two other tests and find the results the same, even though their plus minus method is rather confusing. Regardless, the answer is still the same. I am undeniably, unequivocally and irreversibly pregnant.





---Chapter 23---





I sit down on the edge of my bed and whisper the results out loud, “I’m pregnant.” My mind immediately comes to my mother and her hatred for her children. She hated me from the time of conception and this thought brings tears to my eyes. Although this news is by far shocking, it’s not the worst thing that could happen to me. I have a good job, yes, I hate it, but at least have one. I have health insurance and a home, a 401k and great friends and my sisters, which is more than some can say. I’m going to be all right.